Having never played the first two games, I jumped into this to discover for myself what this series was all about. This title, under the name of none other than Rockstar, held a lot of promise and I was at least expecting a solid shooter. And that’s precisely what I got, but ultimately I couldn’t help but feel like the entire experience was somewhat unremarkable.
The basic gameplay mechanics, from movement to gunplay, along with the story and decent visuals for the console generation, were all solid, but none of it particularly stood out to me. When I thought about it, I realised that the game’s basic feel for shooting the baddies wasn’t particularly as fun or as thrilling as it should be for a game like this. As the old adage goes, a shooter is only really as good as its guns, and here all the guns had a very average feel to them and none of them were particularly a joy to wield. At its core, this comes down to sound effects and visceral gun-in-hand visual feedback, which were overall lacklustre. And when your game revolves around these elements and shooting mechanics so heavily, as you play the game you can’t help feel that the whole experience is just a little flat to what it should be.
Maybe it’s because I’ve played games that have simply done it better; I had far more fun with Stranglehold, which is in many ways similar to this game, but much more entertaining in terms of moment-to-moment gameplay. Nonetheless, the story is good and supported by fairly strong characters, and for a bargain bin price, blowing through this game will still be a decent way to spend a weekend. For experienced players, I recommend playing on Normal difficulty with soft-lock targeting, otherwise you will likely find the game frustrating.